Sunday, May 22, 2011

Living Room Crown Moulding

I would describe the color of the woodwork in our house as orange. We knew it had to go. And those doorknobs? Yeah. Beautiful. Those were out as well.

A couple of weeks ago we moved everything into our dining room so that we could get this room painted and looking much less orange. The color of the room before was a dark brownish tan. We moved into our house five years ago and hated the color then. We knew we wanted to paint it, but could not ever decide on a color. After we bought our couch last year we finally settled on a color. We chose Oatland Subtle Taupe by Valspar. It is a signature interior semi-gloss.

The boys are always such troopers when we do projects. They love tools and watching us work on projects. They also did some of this:

We started out by painting the ceiling and then moved onto the walls. The color on the left is the new paint. Isn't it brighter and cheerier? Our living room is TINY, and the dark color made it so cave-like.

After we finished painting the walls, I moved onto the trim. This picture was taking with only one coat of paint but the difference is so amazing to me. No more orange! Hooray for small miracles.

Here is a picture of our crammed full dining room. Nice, eh?

Here is my handyman installing the first piece of crown moulding.

During the moulding installation, we used this handy tool. It is a crown moulding support and is made by Rockler. Since there were only two of us, this tool made the job super easy by holding one end of the moulding in place while I held the other side. Jason was free to do whatever he needed to do to get the piece of moulding nailed into place.

This is a close-up of my husband coping the moulding. That's right, folks. No cheating here. We're anal like that. :) Let's just say that the folks at This Old House would be proud.

Here are my two boys, happy as clams while playing on ladders. Also, I forgot that I'm not supposed to ask Oliver to smile because this is what I get. Nice smile, Ollie!

Aww.

Three walls complete!

After we installed moulding on all four walls, we caulked the filled nail holes, sanded, caulked the edges, and then painted.

Here is the completed room before we moved in the furniture.

Here is the completed room! This project was a big undertaking but we are very happy with the results!

I am still on the lookout for curtains, but for now the brown ones will do.

Even though our living room is tiny, it appears bigger because it looks cleaner and brighter, don't you think?

wow! what a difference. LOVE the new wall color. I sooo want crown molding in our house but my hubby unfortunately is NOT Tim The Tool Man! LOL he'd be right there next to your boys playing video games!

I love your new room , I keep wishing to go white but it would be a massive jump for me , I might just start with one room and see ... In the mean time I can enjoy yours on your blog ( gorgeous boys btw ) Looking forward to reading more xx Ava

Lovely redo, very serene and sophisticated.If I could suggest... I'd love to see a touch of terracotta/soft burnt orange in the room - a couple pillows, the throw on the chair. It would pick up the warm tones in the photos behind the couch and also the oak floor color. The crown molding is outstanding! I like that you did the 'real deal' and not a styro look-alike. That will really keep it's value.Keep up the great work.